How To Have Different Backgrounds On Different Monitors

Setting a unique background on each of your multiple monitors was a simple pull a fast one on in Windows eight, simply the bill of fare is cached to the point of being invisible in Windows x. But information technology'due south still there if you know where to look.

New: Prepare a Wallpaper in the Settings App

Since nosotros originally published this article, Microsoft added a better solution to Windows 10.

To modify desktop backgrounds individually for each monitor, head to Settings > Personalization > Background. Under Choose Your Picture, right-click a background paradigm and select "Set for monitor 1," "Set for monitor 2," or whichever other monitor y'all want to use information technology on.

To add additional images to this list, click "Browse" and select a wallpaper you desire to use. Windows will ready it as your default on all desktops. Correct-click the wallpaper icons and choose which monitor you desire to use each on.

Setting different wallpapers for different monitors on Windows 10.

When to Use This Trick (and When to Use 3rd Party Tools)

First and foremost, nosotros want to brand the best employ of your time–both in reading this tutorial and down the road when y'all're using our advice to mix up your wallpapers. With that in mind, consider the following 2 scenarios.

Scenario one: You infrequently change your desktop wallpaper, but you would actually like to have a different groundwork on each monitor. In this scenario, the solution in this commodity (which is quick and uses Windows' built-in setting) is a perfect i as it's low-cal on system resource.

Scenario two: if you desire to use multiple and unlike wallpapers on each of your monitors, and you want a high degree of control over that, then the standard wallpaper options in Windows x probably won't cut it. If you're a wallpaper junkie or really demand fine-molar command over the backgrounds, and so we strongly recommend the venerable (and all the same quite useful) John's Background Switcher (gratis) or the Swiss Regular army Knife of multimonitor management, DisplayFusion (the features relevant to wallpaper direction are available in the gratuitous version).

If you lot find yourself in scenario i, though, permit's take a look at how to set a custom wallpaper on each monitor in Windows 10. (And if you're in a customize-all-the-things mood, be sure to check out how to customize your Windows 10 login and lock screen, too.)

RELATED: How to Change the Login Screen Background on Windows 10

How to Select Unique Wallpapers for Unlike Monitors in Windows x

In that location are two ways two get about selecting multiple monitor wallpapers in Windows 10–neither particularly intuitive. For each method, we'll employ a handful ofGame of Thrones wallpapers to demonstrate. For frame of reference, here'south what our current desktop looks like, with the default Windows ten wallpaper repeated on each of our iii monitors.

It's nice wallpaper, as far equally stock wallpaper goes, but a tad tedious. Let's mix it up.

The Like shooting fish in a barrel, but Imperfect Method: Change Your Wallpaper With the Windows File Explorer

The first method isn't intuitive, because it relies on you selecting the images in Windows' File Explorerand knowing how Windows will handle your multiple paradigm selection. Select your images in the File Explorer, using Ctrl or Shift to select multiple images. Right click on the image you wish to assign to your primary monitor while the images you want to use are nonetheless selected. (Note, this is primary as in the monitor Windows thinks of as the primary monitor per the Settings > System > Display bill of fare in the Control Panel, not necessarily the monitor you consider the primary/important ane.) In the right-click context carte du jour, select "Gear up as desktop groundwork".

Windows will set those images every bit your desktop wallpapers. Beneath, you can see that the prototype nosotros clicked on (the red wallpaper with the House Lannister crest) is on the eye monitor. The two other wallpapers, for House Stark and House Baratheon, are more or less randomly placed on the secondary and third monitor.

This is a particularly inelegant solution because you have no control over where the images on the not-primary monitors will be placed. It also has two other irritating shortcomings: if the images are not the exact resolution of your monitor, they won't piece of work, and they volition randomly rotate positions every 30 minutes.

With those shortcomings in mind, know that we've shown you this method entirely in the name of thoroughness and pedagogy and not because we think yous'll prefer it. Let'due south look at a much better method.

The Complicated, simply Powerful Method: Modify Your Wallpaper With the Personalization Card

Update: The command here no longer brings up the traditional Command Panel interface, only you lot can at present use the Settings > Personalization > Groundwork window to accomplish the same thing.

When Windows eight came out, one of the kickoff things multi-monitor users noticed is that there were a bunch of new menu options, including a very easy to use multi-monitor wallpaper selection tool built correct into the Personalizations menu in the Control Panel. Inexplicably, that option vanished in Windows x.

You won't find it in Settings > Personalization > Backgrounds where it used to be–there you can only set up a single image as your background regardless of how many monitors you have. Farther, you won't observe it where it used to reside in Windows 8, in Control Console > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization where in that location used to be a direct link to it. Strangely, fifty-fifty though no menus direct link to information technology anymore, the menu itself is just hanging out there waiting for you lot.

To access it, press Windows+R on your keyboard to telephone call up the Run dialog box and enter the following text:

control /name Microsoft.Personalization /folio pageWallpaper

Press Enter and, by the power of command-line tricks, yous'll meet the erstwhile wallpaper selection menu.

If nosotros click on the "Browse" button, we can scan to the binder with ourGame of Thrones wallpapers (or we tin employ the dropdown menu to navigate to existing wallpaper locations like the Windows Pictures library).

Once yous've loaded the directory yous wish to work with, hither's where you lot'll finally get the per-monitor control you've been looking for. Deselect the images (Windows automatically checks all of them when you load the directory) so select a single image. Correct-click on information technology and select the monitor yous wish to assign it to (again, visit Settings > Arrangement > Display if you don't know which monitor is which number).

Echo the procedure for whatsoever wallpaper you lot wish to use for each monitor. The end issue? Exactly the wallpaper we want on each monitor:

If you lot want to further mix things up, yous can ever select multiple images and then apply the "Flick position" drop-downward menu to brand adjustments to how the image is displayed and the "Change picture every" carte du jour to tweak how often the selection of photos you lot have are changed up.

It's not the almost sophisticated organization in the world (see some of the third party options we highlighted in the introduction for more avant-garde features) but information technology gets the job done.

Despite the menu vanishing from the Command Console, a little command line-fu returns it, and y'all can easily customize your wallpapers across multiple monitors to your centre's content.